There’s no shortage of news about how artificial intelligence techniques are helping us engage customers better in healthcare. Many pharmaceutical companies have visions of Amazon-like targeting serving up Netflix-esque recommendations on how to engage customers better with the right channels, content and cadence.

The opportunities to communicate with physicians and other key decision-makers in person has dwindled over the last decade, according to ZS’s AffinityMonitor™ and AccessMonitor™ reports, which study doctors’ true behaviors and their affinities for different promotional channels. Drilling down into particular specialties, we see a similar picture—and even more drastic declines. In oncology, for example, 24% of oncologists are “accessible” today, compared with the more than 90% of oncologists who met with most pharma reps in 2009. As a result, pharma companies have largely increased their reliance on digital promotion, but are pharma companies paying attention to doctors’ cues?

With sales and marketing teams functioning in silos, pharmaceutical companies are targeting the same customer with multiple, uncoordinated campaigns, leading to healthcare professionals hearing different or even inconsistent messages from various channels within the same organization, sometimes on the same day.

Personalized experiences have had a major impact on our daily lives: Facebook helps users plan their weekends by providing relevant, personalized event information based on their interests and connections. Google narrows down search parameters based on an individual’s location and search history. Netflix provides movie recommendations according to a user’s preferences. The list goes on.

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

The quote by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus applies perfectly to marketing in today’s digital world, where hyper-personalization efforts at millisecond intervals are important to delivering engaging customer experiences and meeting the customer “in the moment.” Digital disruption is creating a mandate for every company, including those in life sciences, to transform into an “experience-first” company.

There’s no shortage of news about how artificial intelligence techniques are helping us engage customers better in healthcare. Many pharmaceutical companies have visions of Amazon-like targeting serving up Netflix-esque recommendations on how to engage customers better with the right channels, content and cadence.

The opportunities to communicate with physicians and other key decision-makers in person has dwindled over the last decade, according to ZS’s AffinityMonitor™ and AccessMonitor™ reports, which study doctors’ true behaviors and their affinities for different promotional channels. Drilling down into particular specialties, we see a similar picture—and even more drastic declines. In oncology, for example, 24% of oncologists are “accessible” today, compared with the more than 90% of oncologists who met with most pharma reps in 2009. As a result, pharma companies have largely increased their reliance on digital promotion, but are pharma companies paying attention to doctors’ cues?

With sales and marketing teams functioning in silos, pharmaceutical companies are targeting the same customer with multiple, uncoordinated campaigns, leading to healthcare professionals hearing different or even inconsistent messages from various channels within the same organization, sometimes on the same day.

Personalized experiences have had a major impact on our daily lives: Facebook helps users plan their weekends by providing relevant, personalized event information based on their interests and connections. Google narrows down search parameters based on an individual’s location and search history. Netflix provides movie recommendations according to a user’s preferences. The list goes on.

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

The quote by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus applies perfectly to marketing in today’s digital world, where hyper-personalization efforts at millisecond intervals are important to delivering engaging customer experiences and meeting the customer “in the moment.” Digital disruption is creating a mandate for every company, including those in life sciences, to transform into an “experience-first” company.